Slack as the police were in other directions, the campaign against vagrants continued to be conducted with vigour. All men, whatever their station, were ordered to apprehend such rogues or vagabonds as they might see begging, and to convey them to the nearest constable or tythingman, at whose hands they were liable to be branded with the letter "R," should they be found incorrigible.[115] Nor was this all. Justices of the Peace were instructed to summon the constables together some four or five days before the half-yearly sessions, and to command them "to make a general privy search one night for the finding out of such rogues and idle persons, and such as they find they shall bring to the Justices, and if for punishment (cause them to be) conveyed to the house of correction, there to be set to labour."[116] In order, moreover, that this privy search might be the more effectual, constables were empowered to claim the assistance of as many neighbours as they might find sufficient for their purpose. Such persistent persecution of the vagrant class does not argue that the police were efficient, for if the vagrants had been organized or able to stand up for themselves, there is little doubt that they would have been left alone just as the Roaring Boys and the Bonaventors were. This is also true, to some extent, of those unfortunate persons who were suspected of being afflicted with the plague, and who were, in consequence, treated with as little consideration as are pariah dogs in an Indian cantonment. Fear of the plague aroused an unwonted display of energy amongst police officers, and caused extraordinary powers to be given to the Justices, who were authorised to appoint Searchers, Watchmen, Examiners, and others to see that no person suspected of being infected left their houses. If any such person, having been duly warned, "contemptuously went abroad," the Watchmen might, with violence, enforce him to keep his house, but if he was caught in the public streets having any infectious sore upon him uncured, he was adjudged "_ipso facto_" guilty of felony, and might be sentenced to death. Furthermore, if any man was discovered abroad "conversing with company" after being cautioned to keep house, even if there was no sore found about him, it was ordained that he should be punished as a vagabond, and be subject to all penalties for vagabondage (including whipping) besides being bound to his good behaviour for the space of one year.[117] In remote country districts similar powers were conferred, not only on Justices of the Peace, but also on constables and headboroughs.[118]